Vietnamese Perspectives on the War in Vietnam

X. Vietnamese Exile Narratives

In this section are narratives written by Vietnamese in the West.
Written in English, sometimes with the help of a ghost writer, these works
discuss Vietnam as much if not more than experiences in the land of exile.
The introduction suggests how readings could be assigned to convey the
variety of regional, gender, and class perspectives that are reflected in
these narratives.

Most Vietnamese exiles, at least those of Tri.nh Co^ng So+n's generation, have not forgotten. If an
exile is "someone who inhabits one place and remembers or projects the reality of another,"1 then Vietnamese living abroad are indeed exiles. As explained in my Introduction,
Vietnamese exile narratives differ from those by other Asian immigrants. Literature called Asian
American is typically written by second-generation Japanese and Chinese who speak English as a
first language and have learned about the "homeland" from their parents. All the Vietnamese exile
writers listed in this section, however, are first-generation immigrants whose first language is
Vietnamese. All of them focus as much (if not more) on life in Vietnam than life in the U.S., a fact
that makes their works difficult to classify. If a Vietnamese exile writes a book that focuses almost
exclusively on life in Vietnam, should this book be classified as an exile narrative? My solution has
been to reserve this section-- "Vietnamese Exile Narratives"--for works that discuss maybe not
exclusively but at least partially life in the land of exile. Citations with annotations for these works
will be found here. Books written by exiles which focus exclusively on life in Vietnam are cross-
listed in this section but their annotations will be found in other sections.

In the Viet Nam War/The American War, Renny Christopher suggests that this
preoccupation with both Vietnam and America that one typically finds in Vietnamese exile narratives
is caused by more than the fact that the authors are first generation immigrants. Vietnamese, she
implies, are culturally conditioned to prefer a more communal perspective. She compares Euro-
American narratives to Vietnamese exile narratives and finds the former to be preoccupied with
America and Americans and with the "mythologizing and valorizing of personal experience" ; the
latter, however--the works by Vietnamese exiles--are distinguished by their dual focus on America
and Vietnam and by their "biculturality" and "communality" (2, 30-38). These different
preoccupations lead to different views of the war: "While Euro-Americans tend to see the Viet Nam
war as being 'about' America, Vietnamese refugee writers show it to be 'about' both Viet Nam and
America, together." (36-37).

In their choice of content Vietnamese exile writers may be expressing a cultural preference for
community. In their choice of form, however--autobiography, first-person accounts of private lives--
we see them adapting to Western individualism and the expectations of English-language readers.
It is not surprising that the most completely fictionalized narrative of all those listed here--Vo~
Phie^'n's Intact--was written originally in Vietnamese for a Vietnamese audience. This
avoidance of autobiography may result not from a deep cultural aversion to personal revelation but
from years of writing under fear of censorship and imprisonment. Many Vietnamese have learned
that heartfelt thoughts are often more safely expressed in the guise of fiction.

Some of the American works are written with professional assistance and most appear to be
carefully edited and packaged for Western readers. The exception, as already mentioned, is Vo~
Phie^'n's Intact, the story of Dung (pronounced "yoom"), a young girl, who in the confusion
surrounding Saigon's fall, gets separated from her family and fiance' and comes to the U.S. alone.
Eventually she reunites with her family in Minnesota, but not with her fiance', who at the end of the
book is still in Vietnam. Dung's separation from her fiance' becomes a metaphor for the exile
experience--for the sadness, regret, and nostalgia that people who love their country feel when they
must leave it. The reader understands this nostalgia because the novel begins with scenes that
capture the charm of a peaceful Vietnam. In one scene, Dung and her fiance' spend siesta time
together in her house. They only hold hands briefly, for they are proper young people, but they are
intimate nevertheless. Time seems to slow down on this languid Vietnam afternoon. As the
communist troops advance, quiet scenes like this one become rarer and rarer and finally exist only
in memory.

These narratives represent a variety of regional, gender, and class perspectives. One could assign
them in arrangements that would help students appreciate that within the common experience of
exile lie a host of individual stories. For example, one could assign Le^. Ly' Hayslip's When
Heaven and Earth Changed Places with Nguye^~n Qui' DDu+'c's Where the Ashes Are.
Though the authors of these accounts are both from the Hue^'-DDa` Na(~ng area of central
Vietnam, their backgrounds couldn't be more different: Le^. Ly' Hayslip grows up hard-scrabble
poor in a rural peasant village; Nguye^~n Qui' DDu+'c grows up in a house full of servants, the son
of socially and politically prominent parents. Despite their different backgrounds, both writers
struggle to reconcile their lives in America with their love and concern for Vietnam. Or one could
keep gender constant while varying region and social class and compare Le^. Ly' Hayslip's account
with those by Nguye^~n Thi. Thu-La^m and Nguye^~n Thi. Tuye^'t Mai, two sisters from an upper
class northern family with very Francophile parents. Despite their very different social
backgrounds, all three women become adept at dealing with Americans and in surviving in contexts
usually dominated by men.

The essential sadness of exile, Edward Said observes, the "unhealthy rift forced between a human
being and a native place, between the self and its true home," can never be surmounted.3 We find this sadness expressed perhaps most poignantly in Vo~ Phie^'n's literary
essays--in "The Key," for example. But as Said and others have pointed out, exile also makes
possible originality of vision. "Often it is when we journey," Marguerite Bouvard writes in her
foreword to Landscape and Exile, "that we see the most clearly, both the places we have
left, and the new and strange places of arrival" (x). These exile narratives demonstrate the truth of
these statements.

________. "Vietnamese Exile Writers: Displacement, Identity, The Past and the Future." Paper
presented at the Modern Language Association Convention, 1995.

Critical discussion of Nguye^~n Qu'i DDu+'c's Where the Ashes Are and Jade Ngo.c Quang
Huy`nh's South Wind Changing. Concludes that these recently published works by younger
writers are, in their dual focus on both Vietnam and the U. S., like the exile narratives by older
writers that the author reviewed in The Viet Nam War / The American War. Because these
younger writers (particularly DDu+'c), however, must struggle more to maintain their Vietnamese
identity, Christopher sees them as representing "a transitional period in Vietnamese American
literature, poised between exile literature and immigrant literature." She finds South Wind
Changing "less complex and less interesting than DDu+'c's narrative."

These are examples of a genre the Vietnamese call tu`y bu't, perhaps best translated as
"literary essay." Vo~ Phie^'n is considered a master of this genre. In "Wrapping Clouds" he
discusses the reaction of Vietnamese refugees in Minnesota to their first snowstorm. In "A Dream
of Mars" he compares leaving Saigon for America with leaving the earth for Mars. In "The Key" he
describes a refugee who has abandoned his 93-year old father in Vietnam. He left gold in a
wardrobe for his father but forgot to leave the key! In a quiet, sometimes whimsical, and always
thoughtful way, Vo~ Phie^'n expresses the sadness of exile. For information on the tu`y bu't
genre, see Vo~ Phie^'n's Literature in South Vietnam: 1954-1975, pp. 180-185 and pp. 205-
210.